“Hands,” she said. “Not for sale. Nor my knees. Or my ears. No body parts for sale, Ulaam. Ever.”
“Well, that’s quite definitive,” he said. “You’ve grown rather forceful, hmmmm? I remember when you first arrived, and you seemed embarrassed to turn me down.”
“I’m not any different now. I’m simply more desperate.”
“More desperate than those first few days on the ship?” he asked.
Tress hesitated, thinking back to those first awful days. Well, yes, she’d been desperate then too. She’d assumed herself to be as desperate as was possible.
Perhaps it was like lifting weights—her capacity for desperation was increasing with time. And there just wasn’t room for other emotions, like embarrassment.
“Regardless,” Ulaam said, “we shall move on. No more offers for now. Your plan with the captain. You’re certain the others will join you in this mutiny?”
“Pretty sure,” Tress said. “I…may have led Salay and the other officers to think I am a King’s Mask…”
“Oh my,” Ulaam said. “How did you manage that?”
“Accidentally,” Tress said with a grimace. “Somehow I seem to be best at lying when I tell the truth.”
“Wise words, wise words,” I said. “But tell me, have you heard my latest poem?”
“Excuse me,” Ulaam said, “I’m disconnecting my ears for the next two minutes.”
“What?” Tress said. Unfortunately, she was limited by her anatomy. She couldn’t disconnect her ears unless she wanted it to be permanent.
“There once was a farmer with a tulip bulb,” I said. “Who had nowhere to plant it. He found a place to sit. He then threw a fit. And accidentally mashed it into pulp. The end.”
Oh, gods.
Oh, Shards within.
What had I become?
“That’s…nice,” Tress said. And for a girl who claimed she was bad at lying, she pulled that one off swimmingly.
Ulaam returned to sensibility a short time later. “Ah!” he said. “You’re not bleeding from your ears, Tress? Remarkable. Is that all you’ll be needing from me today?”
“I suppose,” Tress said. “But…are you sure you won’t help? In our mutiny?”
“Alas,” Ulaam said. “I can offer only medical attention, should you require it. More interference would not be proper.”
“If we don’t get out of the Crimson soon,” Tress said, “the ship could end up sinking. That would kill you too.”
“Assumptions, assumptions,” Ulaam said, walking to the steps. “Hoid is immortal, and I am nearly so. While I don’t relish the idea of walking across the bottom of the spore sea to reach safety—partic ularly with him tagging along in his current state—that is not outside my abilities.”
I stood up to go after him, as a part of me—that piece that was slightly self-aware—kept trying to ambush him with bad poems.
I stopped next to Tress, however, who now sat with her flare gun in her lap. Staring at the floor. Outside, the soft hiss of spores rubbing along the hull was a steady companion. A reminder that we were moving inevitably toward the dragon’s lair.
Captain Crow estimated it was only two days away.
“I’m worried,” Tress said softly, looking up at me. “I’m…I’m terrified.”
I put my hand on her shoulder and managed to keep myself from vomiting forth another poem. She must have seen something in my eyes, the fragment of lucidity I still possessed.
“I’m terrified,” she repeated. “Not only for everyone else, though I do feel that. I’m scared for myself and what Crow is going to do to me. I can’t beat her. Deep down, I know it.”
I raised my other hand, lifting a single finger. “You have,” I whispered, “everything you need, Tress.”
“The flare gun? But what if I fail?”
“You have everything you need.” I squeezed her on the arm, then started up after Ulaam. Then I slowed. Something was wrong, wasn’t it? Other than the fact that I wasn’t currently launching into an epic ode to the beauty of calluses?
Oh. The hissing on the hull had stopped. The seethe had paused, and the ship was slowing. Well, nothing to worry about there. That happened all the time, and wasn’t dangerous.
Unless rain was near.
You can probably guess what happened next.
THE NIGHTMARE
I have nightmares. My unique state of being doesn’t prevent that, though I don’t need sleep nearly as much as ordinary humans do.